Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Writing A Literature Review: Content of The Review
Writing A Literature Review: Content of The Review
www.learningcommons.uoguelph.ca 2.
Nine Steps to Writing a Literature
Review
1. Find a working topic.
Look at your specic area of study. Tink about what
interests you, and what is fertile ground for study. Talk
to your professor, brainstorm, and read lecture notes and
recent issues of periodicals in the eld.
2. Review the literature.
Using keywords, search a computer database. It is best
to use at least two databases relevant to your discipline.
Remember that the reference lists of recent articles and
reviews can lead to valuable papers.
Make certain that you also include any studies con-
trary to your point of view.
3. Focus your topic narrowly and select
papers accordingly.
Consider the following:
What interests you?
What interests others?
What time span of research will you consider?
Choose an area of research that is due for a review.
4. Read the selected articles thoroughly
and evaluate them.
What assumptions do most/some researchers seem to
be making?
What methodologies do they use? - what testing pro-
cedures, subjects, material tested?
Evaluate and synthesize the research ndings and
conclusions drawn.
Note experts in the eld: names/labs that are frequently
referenced.
Note conicting theories, results, methodologies.
Watch for popularity of theories and how this has/has
not changed over time.
5. Organize the selected papers by looking
for patterns and by developing sub-
topics.
Note things such as:
Findings that are common/contested
Two or three important trends in the research
Te most inuential theories
6. Develop a working thesis.
Write a one- or two-sentence statement summarizing the
conclusion you have reached about the major trends and
developments you see in the research that has been done
on your subject.
7. Organize your own paper based on
the findings from steps 4 & 5.
Develop headings/subheadings. If your literature review is
extensive, nd a large table surface, and on it place post-it
notes or ling cards to organize all your ndings into cat-
egories. Move them around if you decide that (a) they t
better under dierent headings, or (b) you need to estab-
lish new topic headings.
8. Write the body of the paper
Follow the plan you have developed above, making cer-
tain that each section links logically to the one before and
after, and that you have divided your sections by themes or
subtopics, not by reporting the work of individual theorists
or researchers.
9. Look at what you have written;
focus on analysis, not description.
Look at the topic sentences of each paragraph. If you were
to read only these sentences, would you nd that your
paper presented a clear position, logically developed, from
beginning to end? If, for example, you nd that each para-
graph begins with a researchers name, it might indicate
that, instead of evaluating and comparing the research
literature from an analytical point of view, you have simply
described what research has been done. Tis is one of the
most common problems with student literature reviews.
So if your paper still does not appear to be dened by a
www.learningcommons.uoguelph.ca 3.
central, guiding concept, or if it does not critically analyse
the literature selected, then you should make a new outline
based on what you have said in each section and paragraph
of the paper, and decide whether you need to add informa-
tion, to delete o-topic information, or to re-structure the
paper entirely.
For example, look at the following two passages and note
that Student A is merely describing the literature and
Student B takes a more analytical and evaluative approach,
by comparing and contrasting. You can also see that this
evaluative approach is well signalled by linguistic markers
indicating logical connections (words such as however,
moreover) and phrases such as substantiates the claim
that, which indicate supporting evidence and Student Bs
ability to synthesize knowledge.
Student A:
Smith (2000) concludes that personal privacy in their liv-
ing quarters is the most important factor in nursing home
residents perception of their autonomy. He suggests that
the physical environment in the more public spaces of the
building did not have much impact on their perceptions.
Neither the layout of the building, nor the activities avail-
able seem to make much dierence.
Jones and Johnstone make the claim that the need to
control ones environment is a fundamental need of life
(2001), and suggest that the approach of most institutions,
which is to provide total care, may be as bad as no care at
all. If people have no choices or think that they have none,
they become depressed.
Student B:
After studying residents and sta from two intermediate
care facilities in Calgary, Alberta, Smith (2000) came
to the conclusion that except for the amount of personal
privacy available to residents, the physical environment of
these institutions had minimal if any eect on their per-
ceptions of control (autonomy). However, French (1998)
and Haroon (2000) found that availability of private areas
is not the only aspect of the physical environment that
determines residents autonomy. Haroon interviewed 115
residents from 32 dierent nursing homes known to have
dierent levels of autonomy (2000). It was found that
physical structures, such as standardized furniture, heat-
ing that could not be individually regulated, and no pos-
session of a house key for residents limited their feelings of
independence. Moreover, Hope (2002), who interviewed
225 residents from various nursing homes, substantiates
the claim that characteristics of the institutional environ-
ment such as the extent of resources in the facility, as well
as its location, are features which residents have indicated
as being of great importance to their independence.
Finishing Touches: Revising and
Editing Your Work
Read your work out loud. Tat way you will be better
able to identify where you need punctuation marks to
signal pauses or divisions within sentences, where you
have made grammatical errors, or where your sen-
tences are unclear.
Since the purpose of a literature review is to demon-
strate that the writer is familiar with the important
professional literature on the chosen subject, check to
make certain that you have covered all of the impor-
tant, up-to-date, and pertinent texts. In the sciences
and some of the social sciences it is important that
your literature be quite recent; this is not so important
in the humanities.
Make certain that all of the citations and references
are correct and that you are referencing in the appro-
priate style for your discipline. If you are uncertain
which style to use, ask your professor.
Check to make sure that you have not plagiarized
either by failing to cite a source of information, or by
using words quoted directly from a source. (Usually
if you take three or more words directly from another
source, you should put those words within quotation
marks, and cite the page.)
Text should be written in a clear and concise academic
style; it should not be descriptive in nature or use the
language of everyday speech.
Tere should be no grammatical or spelling errors.
Sentences should ow smoothly and logically.
In a paper in the sciences, or in some of the social sci-
ences, the use of subheadings to organize the review is
recommended.
Additional Relevant Fastfacts
Writing University Essays
Improving Your Writing
Plagiarism and Academic Integrity
4.
Writing Services
Te Learning Commons, 1st Floor, Library
www.learningcommons.uoguelph.ca
writing@uoguelph.ca
(519) 824-4120 ext. 53632
Need Advice or More Information?
Writing Services, located in the Learning Commons on
the 1st oor of the Library, is the best source on campus
and online for advice and information on writing issues.
Peer Helpers from a variety of disciplines oer indi-
vidual writing assistance to rst-year students and ESL
students. And all University of Guelph students un-
dergraduate and graduate are entitled to three free
individual writing consultations per semester with our
professional sta. Appointments are recommended.
Visit the Learning Commons home page to nd out
about all our writing programs and services, or e-mail
questions to writing@uoguelph.ca.
Fastfacts handouts (like this one) provide information
on a range of learning, writing, and academic com-
puting issues and are free to registered students. Te
complete range of Fastfacts is available on the Learn-
ing Commons website.
More detailed information on writing university pa-
pers can be found in our Learning Commons publi-
cations, available for purchase at the Learning Com-
mons reception desk or the campus bookstore.
Workshops, seminars, and short courses on learning,
studying and writing topics are oered regularly each
semester. Please contact the Learning Commons for
details.
Please note that this material is protected by copyright.
For permission to reproduce this document in any form,
contact Writing Services, Te Learning Commons,
University of Guelph. Tis document has links which are
active when the handout is viewed on our website: www.
learningcommons.uoguelph.ca/ByFormat/OnlineResourc-
es/Fastfacts/index.html